


20th Century Boy

by edwardsmom



Category: Velvet Goldmine
Genre: Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-02
Updated: 2015-10-02
Packaged: 2018-04-24 11:49:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4918399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edwardsmom/pseuds/edwardsmom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Curt Wild and the Rats do a show in Berkeley, CA.</p>
            </blockquote>





	20th Century Boy

_Well it’s plain to see you were meant for me  
Yeah I’m your toy your 20th Century boy — Marc Bolan_

“Curt!” Someone kicked at his feet. “Wake up, you motherfucker, I’m not carrying you in this time!”

“Wha — ?” Curt blinked against the sunlight streaming in through the back doors of the van, where the other Rats were already unloading equipment. He rolled onto his back and dug the heels of his hands against his eyes. “Are we still in…” He thought hard. “…Idaho?”

“Jesus Christ, Idaho was four shows ago! We’re in _California_ ,” Perry, the drummer, informed him. 

His head was trying to explode, his side throbbed from falling asleep on a mess of electrical cords and (apparently) the corner of an amp, and his mouth felt like a nest of small furry animals had died in it. “Fuuuuuuuuuuuck,” summed everything up nicely. 

He lurched out of the van and lead guitarist Jono, whose dulcet tones — and well-placed kick — had woken him up, thrust something at him and demanded, “Can you at least manage your own guitar?” 

He groaned something noncommittal and was steered in the general direction of the stage door. The sudden change from bright sunlight to the dim hallway, though, made him stumble as he went past the stage door guard. He heard a rattle of glass and felt a shoulder pushed into his chest to steady him. 

“Thanks,” he mumbled, trying to focus but only seeing a vague outline. He took another step, but gravity and the weight of the guitar pulled him off balance again and he fetched up against the helpful shoulder, which turned to give him the full support of a soft, warm back before easing him against the wall. 

“Easy there,” a light, soprano voice said. 

“He’s okay propped up like that. I’m Jake, manager of the Rats.”

Curt gratefully let the wall take his weight and the other person moved away, introducing herself as, “Emma. I’m the house manager tonight — ” For some reason Curt felt a giggle welling up inside of him at her name and snorted, trying to contain his laughter.

“Don’t mind him,” Jake sighed.

“I don’t. If he were conscious, he might even be cute. If you want to set up you can follow me, or the dressing room’s down the hall to the left.”

Curt’s eyes finally adjusted and he made out a figure of medium height pushing a cart stacked with racks of glassware who turned to indicate the dressing rooms — and revealed in the sunlight shining through her thin peasant blouse a clear outline of the curve of her breasts. He happily trailed after her with only an occasional nudge from Jake when he listed too much to one side.

They stopped short at two adjacent doorways, one with stairs leading up to the stage and the other opening onto the main floor, and Emma indicated a woman on the stage. “That’s Laurel, the stage manager,” she told them and then, apparently feeling her duty had been discharged, she pushed her cart of glassware through the main floor doorway and headed behind the bar.

Jake herded Curt up the stairs and onto the stage and quickly got involved in a discussion with Laurel about using curtains or flats, or both, or none. Curt, more awake now that he was back in familiar surroundings — after months on the road, one club was pretty much like another — pulled out a pen and a grubby piece of paper from the back pocket of his jeans, sat at the edge of the stage with his guitar case across his lap, and started working on the set list for the evening.

As the other band members and Eddie, their lone roadie, joined Jake and Laurel and helped wrestle the grand piano off the stage before setting up, Curt occasionally asked them questions over his shoulder — if a song they’d performed towards the end of the set the night before would be better at mid-point, if the lighting effects for another song were too involved — then got up to check the list one last time with the other Rats. 

As he smoothed the paper on top of a speaker, Perry looked over briefly and complained, “Man, where’d you get that, off the ground or something?”

He tried not to look affronted after all the work he’d put into the list, but Laurel also looked over and commented, “The lighting crew won’t be able to read that.” She called out into the house, “Emma!”

The woman with the name Curt thought so odd, who was helping set up chairs and tables around the edge of the main floor, looked up at the stage. “Yeah?” 

“Got any paper?”

Emma waved acknowledgement and went behind the bar. After a few moments she was climbing onto the stage and holding out several sheets torn from a notebook, not sure who’d wanted them.

Curt stepped forward, seeing that his hallway rescuer had dark hair that fell in loose curls around her shoulders, an economical grace, and, despite a no-nonsense demeanor, a humorous glint in her steady dark eyes. He liked what he saw. “Thanks.” 

She handed him the paper, putting on a politely pleasant smile as she made eye contact — and blinked, startled by the genuine warmth of his answering smile. “You’re welcome,” she said almost normally, and thought, _Damn! He is cute when he’s conscious_!

***

Jake, with a manager’s finely-tuned instincts, sensed a food run in the making as activity in the house settled down and the house crew started listening to the sound check. He came down from the stage and was just in time to hear Emma say to one of the ticket takers, “Top Dog’s phone’s busy, but I’ll just go up and order there, we’ve got time.” 

“Can we get in on it?” Jake asked, reaching for his wallet. 

“Sure. What do you want?”

“Enough for six, whatever it is.” He started handing money over.

“That’s plenty, really!” she assured him, shoving some back. “Any of you guys vegetarians?” 

“What?”

“Never mind.”

After the door closed behind her Jake had a sudden thought and picked a victim from the stage.

Emma was stopped for the light at the corner of University and Oxford when she heard a shout behind her. To her surprise, it was the Rat she’d kept from falling who was hurrying after her. Fearing the worst, she asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he reassured her with a smile so completely engaging she found herself smiling back. “Jake just wants you to get a receipt,” he explained. “And he thought you might need some help carrying everything, so he sent me.”

“Well, thanks. I appreciate it.” 

The light turned and they crossed the street together, Curt offering her a cigarette. She shook her head, and he lit one for himself. “So — Emma, right?”

“Yeah.” 

“Is that your real name?”

She raised her eyebrows. “It’s short for ‘Emiliana Marisabella Covarrubias.’” His mouth dropped open slightly. “And your name is — ?”

“Curt Wild.”

“Is that your real name?” she shot back with a sweet smile, and he had the grace to look embarrassed. She turned the corner and started up Hearst Street.

“Fuck. You actually _walk_ up this?” he asked as he stood still, looking up at Hearst.

“All the time,” she assured him.

“Far out.” He gamely imitated her longer gait up the steep hill. He didn’t try any more conversation and eventually even threw away his cigarette to save his breath. When they reached Top Dog, he gratefully collapsed on the bench outside the eatery.

“Admiring the view?” she asked innocently. He only nodded, trying not to so obviously gulp in air. She took pity on him and went in to place their order, then came back out with a large drink for him. He downed it in three swallows.

“Thanks. What was that?”

Amused, she told him, “Apple juice.”

“Didn’t look like it,” he said, examining the sediment in the bottom of the paper cup. 

“It was unfiltered. It’s a Berkeley kind of thing.” She sat beside him as he caught his breath and she carried the conversation, pointing out the San Francisco Bay, the Campanile, and various other university landmarks.

“This is a campus — a college?” he asked suddenly.

She gave him a look. “Yeah. Berkeley. You know — the top public institution of higher education in the country, Free Speech Movement, anti-war protests, things like that.”

“Then you’re a student here?”

“I’m doing my dissertation on Jane Austen, an 18th century novelist, and teaching introductory literature.”

“ _And_ you work at the club?”

She shrugged. “You don’t make much teaching English lit; you’ve gotta make ends meet somehow.” She considered him, genuinely curious. “So — now that you can breathe again, what’s _your_ story?” 

“Not much to tell.” He gestured vaguely east. “Grew up in Michigan and moved to New York to start a band. We’ve been touring for — almost a year now. We would’ve made enough to go back in the studio at the end of the tour and put together another album.” He lit another cigarette, gratefully inhaled and slowly, luxuriously exhaled. 

“’Would have’?” she asked.

Curt looked back at her and saw her dark eyes still intent on him. He told her how they were finally starting to catch on, that when the Rats finished up in California, Jake had gotten them booked into bigger venues on the East Coast, and then after that they were going to England for an outdoor music festival. She was plainly as excited at that prospect as he was, telling him how she’d always wanted to see where Jane Austen had lived. He asked her about Austen, and found himself telling her his dream of a European tour and coming back to the States to cut the album that would hurtle them over the top. He suddenly grinned at her. “I like you, Emma. You’re real.”

“I’m sorry?”

“You had a life before tonight, and you’ll have one after the show. You don’t exist only for tonight.”

“That’s true of everybody,” she said, not sure she understood.

“Not the people I meet — they only live for the show, for the band, it doesn’t even matter what band. And after it’s over it’s all about the next band. Everything that comes before and after, that part of their life doesn’t matter to them, they don’t live in that life. You do.”

He was talking about groupies, and Emma certainly didn’t think of herself as one. “But your fans,” she protested, “the people who’re into your music — ”

“Fans.” He blew a cloud of smoke and shook his head. “No, you asked about me, instead of _telling_ me about me — what my music means, how I look, whatever. You’re different. You’re very real.”

_You’re different, too, Curt._ Emma had seen her share of musicians, and although at first she’d thought he was on the stoned end of the scale, she’d seen him on stage involved in every aspect of lighting and staging — decisive, confident, in charge. And now here, freed of responsibility, those qualities became charged with something purely male as all his attention centered on her, his blue eyes electric with intensity. She felt a sharp flutter of desire, something purely female instinctively responding to him.

“Emma!” the guy behind the counter called. “Order up!”

***

After opening the house Emma knocked on the dressing room door. Curt opened it wide, and a piercing wolf whistle sounded from behind him. He shifted his weight to one hip, blocking Emma’s view of the dressing room — or the whistler’s view of her — and grinned at her. “Fuck. You look great!”

She flushed slightly at his compliment; her long-sleeved black leotard, snug-fitting black jeans and steel-toed work boots were purely functional and not any sort of fashion statement. “Thanks.” 

“What’s — ?” He indicated her clothing. “I mean, you looked great before, too.”

“My ‘combat’ outfit, for bands we have to nail down the furniture for.”

“Is that us?” he asked innocently.

She opened her eyes wide with the same pretend innocence. “That’s you.”

“Curt, you bastard, you keeping all the posh birds to yourself?” someone demanded from inside the dressing room — from the accent, Jono, the Rat from Sheffield, England.

Curt turned his head and retorted, “This is Emma, and what do you care, she’s a _Yank_ , she probably drinks _coffee_ like the rest of us savages, not that shit, whadya call it — ” and then he grinned when he set off his bandmate.

“‘Shit’ is right!” Jono shrugged his long, dark wavy hair back from his shoulder and complained, “Bloody paper bag with tea shavings in it, no one can drink that! You assholes wouldn’t know a proper cup of tea — ”

“If it’s so fucking great,” Alan, the bass player, said languidly, also playing Jono along, “why aren’t there any songs about tea?”

“ _What_?”

As Alan went on, “I mean, there are only ‘little old lady’ songs like ‘Tea for Two’ — ” Perry, getting in the spirit of things — clearly, the Americans in the band made quite a pastime of teasing Jono — actually got up and did a strange imitation of a soft shoe, singing tunelessly, “Tea for two, and two for tea,” causing Curt, Eddie, and Jake to howl with laughter.

Jono, still feeling defensive, challenged, “Right, what famous songs about coffee are there, then?”

“Plenty,” Jake asserted, “and not one of them a little old lady song, either. Americans _know_ how to write coffee songs!” 

Into the momentary silence of all the American men stumped for a coffee song and Jono starting to beam with triumph, Emma leaned unobtrusively towards Curt and whispered in his ear. He immediately echoed aloud, relieved, “Java Jive!”

“The fucking coolest song!” Jake declared. “It swings, it’s hip, little old ladies _can’t_ sing it!” He began to snap his fingers in rhythm as he sang, “I love java, da-da-da — ”

Curt took it up, snapping his fingers, too, and singing what Emma sang softly to him, “ — sweet and hot, look, Mr. Moto, I’m a coffee pot! Give me the pot and I’ll pour me a shot, a cup a cup a cup a cup a cup — boy!” Perry began to drum on the dressing table as Emma led Curt over the bridge, “Oh, slip me a slug from that wonderful mug and I’ll cut a rug that’s snug as a bug! A slice of onion and a raw one — draw one! Waiter, waiter, percolator — ”

Emma whispered, “Verse,” and he went back to “I love java, sweet and hot…” Alan and Jake joined in, and Curt threw in some harmony as they finished, “A cup a cup a cup a cup a cup — boy!”

Jono applauded, conceding, “Okay, that beats ‘Tea for Two’ all the fuck hollow. But she saved your bloody asses on that one!”

“Jake knew the song,” Emma pointed out modestly.

“He didn’t know the words. Take a bow — Emma?” She nodded. “Right proper name, that! I like it.”

Emma arched an eyebrow at Curt, who gave her a there’s-no-accounting-for-taste shrug. She leaned past him into the dressing room and said, “I just wanted to let you guys know the house is open. We’ll let you know when it’s five till.”

“Looking forward to it,” Alan said with a wave and a sly smile.

She returned the smile in kind and stepped back from the doorway. The movement made a small silver figurine around her neck — the only jewelry she allowed herself when she worked a show — glint in the light. Curious, Curt reached out and lightly touched it. “What’s that?” 

She looked down at the necklace, his fingers with their black-painted nails resting on it, then back up at him. “It’s a Buddhist goddess — Kuan Yin.” At his blank expression she went on, “The goddess of compassion.”

“Kuan Yin…” And then his blue eyes lit up. “Kuan Yin!”

“You know her?” she asked, amazed.

“Yeah. Back in…” He thought for a bit, then shook his head with a small laugh. “Somewhere in the Midwest. There was this life-size wooden statue of her, and a bunch of people sitting around her, smoking dope and just drinking her in. She looked so…serene, and so powerful at the same time. And the longer I looked at her, everything I was feeling and everything I was thinking just sort of settled down inside me, and I felt…still, and so at peace.”

Emma supposed she shouldn’t be surprised that he knew the bodhisattva. She found herself telling him, “Sometimes, when things get rough in the house, I hold on to her for a bit; it seems to help.”

He turned his hand underneath the figurine, cradling it against his fingertips, the backs of his fingers warm against Emma’s skin. “Yeah. It does,” he agreed softly.

***

Emma couldn’t believe just how many fans and groupies the Rats had — at the end of the show she had to enlist the waiters and waitresses to help security funnel them all out of the building and towards the stage door in back. As they stacked tables and chairs against the walls and mopped up, Jake and Eddie came back out to pack up the stage, and then joined Emma’s crew in a drink at the bar. 

Emma kept hoping as she nursed her beer that Curt might poke his head back into the house — maybe they could go somewhere together afterwards, maybe…

Jake finally set down his empty glass and turned to her, saying with false heartiness, “Well, time to rescue the boys from their groupies! Ha ha. Emma, good to work with you.” He shook hands all around, and then he and Eddie took their leave. 

The crew helped the bartenders clean up, then Emma herded everyone out the front door, locked it behind them and left through the stage door, saying good night to the guard, and walked through the parking lot. Both of the Rats’ vans were gone. For the briefest of moments she considered finding their motel — and just as quickly rejected the thought.

_So much for enticing Curt Wild home_ , she chided herself, smiling at her little fantasies. She started towards campus, letting herself indulge in select memories of the evening to keep herself warm. Like how in a club full of gyrating, adoring fans he’d somehow found her and, radiating a gleeful, reckless energy and his eyes locked with hers, he had torn his shirt off and proudly displayed his pale, gleaming torso to her…that was a good one, together with the feel of him against her back when she’d kept him from falling in the hallway…or even the warmth of his fingers on her skin when he’d held her necklace in his hand...mmm...

As she cut through Sproul Plaza and started walking down Telegraph, wondering if she wanted to stop in at the Heidelberg for some potstickers before she went home, she saw a van run the light at Durant and come careening towards her. She backed away from the curb and kept walking, shaking her head at how people who couldn’t hold their liquor still insisted on getting behind the wheel, when the van braked hard and someone called, “Hey! Need a lift?”

She stared. “Curt?”

He grinned at her. He’d thrown a leather jacket on over his bare torso, but otherwise hadn’t changed his clothes from the show. 

“What are you doing here?” And then, mystified, “How’d you find me?”

He shrugged vaguely. “Just…driving around.”

“Right.” She knew just what it took to navigate the one-way streets and traffic roundabouts between University and Telegraph. She had to give him credit for persistence.

“So how ’bout it?” he asked, flashing a boyish grin she couldn’t resist.

Concentrated maneuvering got the van headed in the right direction, and then Emma said, “You didn’t go searching for me all over Berkeley just to drop me off and drive off in the night,” hoping it didn’t sound like a question.

“Well, I _was_ hoping you’d invite me to stay,” he admitted.

“I might.” She looked straight ahead, trying not to grin. 

As they walked up the stairs to her studio apartment Emma suddenly couldn’t remember what state her place had been in when she’d left that morning — had she made the bed? Taken out the garbage? What would he think about her record collection? Who cared? As soon as she closed the door behind them they’d be all over each other …

She unlocked the door and ushered Curt in ahead of her. He went down the short hallway, found the bathroom — and went in and turned on the shower, locking the door behind him.

She looked at the bathroom door, nonplussed. Was _that_ why he’d come looking for her? She’d thought…

She went into the living area, feeling dazed, and then switched on the light with a savage motion. “Well, forget what _I_ thought,” she muttered to herself. How had she fooled herself into thinking he’d actually wanted to have sex with her when he could have gotten laid at least twice over in the time he’d spent looking for her? Apparently, all he’d wanted was a quiet place to sleep that was away from the rest of the Rats and whatever drunk, stoned groupies they’d corralled in their motel rooms.

Fighting a welling feeling of bitterness, she dropped her bag on the floor and went to her stereo, sorting through albums that might change her mood, then finally she gave in and put B.B. King on the turntable. She took off her jacket and work boots, listening to the soulful guitar line that so matched her mood. 

“The thrill is gone, the thrill is gone away…”

“Sing it, B.B.,” she said, stalking into the kitchen. Part of her felt childish for feeling rejected, but the part that reached into the freezer for the mint chip ice cream told the other part to go fuck itself. She loaded up with two big scoops, saw there wasn’t much more left in the carton and recklessly emptied it all into her bowl.

She stood in the kitchen doorway, eating ice cream and rationalizing. It’d be one thing if they’d just gone to his motel and fucked, but he’d come looking for her, come up to her place, her home, and the rejection felt magnified. Well, he wasn’t going to sleep in her bed, that was for sure. He was sleeping on the floor, if she didn’t kick his ass out into the — 

Curt walked into the living area, his skin pink and still slightly damp from the shower, carrying his clothes in one hand and clutching at the towel wrapped around his waist with the other. “Is that B.B. King? He’s so fucking cool!” 

“Didn’t you see the robe on the back of the bathroom door?”

He didn’t hear the edge in her voice and replied cheerfully, “Yeah, but it didn’t fit me.”

As he threw his clothes on a chair, she set her bowl down on the kitchen counter and regarded him coolly. “Do you always just make yourself at home like that?”

He looked a little taken aback. “I was all sweaty and I just thought…. I should have asked first?”

The look in his eyes was so genuinely contrite she started to thaw. The thought of him losing his grip on the towel didn’t hurt, either. “You should have asked first,” she agreed.

“I think I left you some hot water,” he said by way of apology. 

“Well, that’s something.” She started to move past him when he touched her shoulder lightly. She stopped, momentarily startled at the smell of her soap on him. He moved his hand beneath her chin, tilted her face up, and leaned close and kissed her.

“Your lips are cold,” he said, his voice low.

“I was eating ice cream,” she explained in a small voice.

They kissed again, longer this time. He tasted like cigarette smoke and beer, and to him she tasted like…”Peppermint?” he guessed.

“Mint chip.”

He traced her lips with the tip of his tongue, making her lips part in response. Her hands came up to cup his face as she welcomed his tongue in her mouth, meeting it shyly with her own. Several long, fervent kisses later, he finally agreed, “Mint chip.”

She tried to catch her breath. “I’m going to take a shower.”

He rubbed his nose against hers, making her smile, and said, his voice low, “Hurry back.”

As she undressed in the bathroom, she caught sight of bits of glitter shining in the bathtub. He was just being considerate, she thought as she stood under the hot water, what with the sweat and oil and everything on him after performing. And she wasn’t much better with every kind of liquor that had been spilled on her. Not to mention the fight she’d broken up and that drunken idiot’s bloody nose...

_Okay, we’re both sweet-smelling now_ , she thought as she put on her bathrobe and toweled her hair. _But if he’s asleep when I walk out there_ … She picked up her dirty clothes and, not wanting to misplace her necklace, slipped it back over her head before she opened the bathroom door.

The rest of the apartment was suspiciously dark and for a moment she had a sinking feeling that Curt had indeed gone to sleep. But then she heard the sound of a wine bottle being opened and, walking down the hall and into the living area, she saw that Curt had made himself at home again. 

The first thing she noticed was that he’d lit all the candles she kept around her desk (for when she felt like simulating the conditions Jane Austen had written in) and placed them around the room. On her bed in the corner he’d turned down the covers and piled all of the pillows into an inviting nest. And he’d also apparently found her wineglasses, corkscrew, and the bottle of Valpolicella she’d been saving for a special occasion — which, she supposed, was perfectly appropriate. 

Curt looked up and smiled at her as she crossed the room towards him. She gave in and smiled back, forgiving him the ice cream bowl — empty now, of course — that he’d left on top of the chest of drawers next to the corkscrew. 

He poured wine for them both and handed her a glass. He lifted his own glass to her and took a sip, his eyes never leaving hers. She started to lose herself in those knowing blue eyes then, suddenly unsure, she ducked her head, looking into the depths of the wine as she took a long, slow sip— none of this was the way she’d imagined it would be. 

But Curt wasn’t exactly predictable, either. The guy who’d lewdly teased a capacity crowd was the same guy who’d meditated before a statue of Kuan Yin, and ate all her ice cream, and told her he liked her because she was real. They were all the same person. Why _wouldn’t_ he want to take his time? Why wouldn’t he seduce her, and not just fuck her?

Curt moved his free hand under her raven-dark hair, feeling its weight and dampness before he brushed it back from her shoulder and lightly caressed the side of her neck with his finger. Her pulse leapt at his touch. He leaned slightly forward and let his lips brush against hers. Sweet and warm, her mouth opened for him just enough to taste the wine. When he pulled away she raised her wine glass, tilting it up for him to drink from, and then brought it to her own mouth, finishing the wine. She took his glass from him and set both glasses down.

He took her waist in his hands and stepped back, sitting down on the bed and drawing her to stand between his knees. “I want to look at you,” he told her.

Loosening the belt of her robe, he eased it off her shoulders and down her back until it caught and pooled at his knees. “Oh, you’re beautiful,” he breathed, and lightly stroked up her arms to her shoulders then back down her sides and up over her waist, covering every inch of her torso with a feather-light touch as he gazed at her with obvious delight. 

When he started to lift her necklace over her head she hesitated, “I might need that.”

He wrapped her hand around the little silver bodhisattva, then covered her hand with his and grinned at her. “You just might.” 

**FIN**


End file.
